


The Things We Do For Love

by Drakey



Series: With Apologies [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Horcrux Hunting, M/M, The Crushing Inevitability of Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:19:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4732601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakey/pseuds/Drakey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy's wedding is the event of the new century, but Voldemort waits in the wings to ruin absolutely everyone's day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A garden grew wild and free in front of a run-down house the muggles couldn't see. Edmonton served as a poor, filthy backdrop for plants that were either dead or desperately wanted to kill. Peeled siding and a single cracked pane in the front door stole any dignity from the domicile. It couldn't be called a home, and most likely had never really aspired to the title, the sort of place that any right-thinking witch or wizard called a dead end.

Inside the house was no better. Furniture so worn down by its own poor quality and too many repairing charms was scattered liberally around a few shining gems of antique construction, heirlooms too precious to justify parting with them for their low selling price. On a luxurious-but-small bed in the musty house lay a woman in a faded pink gown, her iron-grey hair stained yellow both by the sickly light and by weeks of neglect. Her face was drawn and haggard, her eyes sunken into their sockets with some combination of age and stress. Her minuscule frame formed a grim landscape in the fabric of her gown.

Dolores Umbridge was perfectly prepared to die. The young man who sat at her bedside was a portrait of handsome, vital energy. Where his clever eyes roved all around the room, the former Minister of Magic stared fixedly at the ceiling. 

"I don't know what I did wrong," Dolores murmured. "I would have liked to see... you know, I believe... that is, I think..."

Her guest brushed her hair aside and whispered for her to be quiet. "This next bit is going to hurt," he confessed. "And I'm afraid I'm going to enjoy that quite a lot." He laid his hand over her breast, where an ornate locket lay. Umbridge had once been a woman kindly described as stout, but honestly described as somewhat fat. Since all the weight had gone out of her, her clothes no longer quite fit. The young man tried to pick up the locket, but it slipped through fingers that had too little substance to grasp it. It had barely moved, but he had managed to shift it enough that it slid down along her frail, weakened body. The kind expression on his face faltered as he turned furious eyes to the corner of the room. A man stepped forward, his bald pate and withered looks contrasting with the shining silver hand he used to pick up the locket and lay it back on Dolores' breast. 

"Merlin, how I long to slap you," the young man said to the elder, and the elder cringed backwards.

The young man settled his hand on top of the locket, looked at Dolores with affection, and smiled kindly as she began to scream in pain. A shadowy form danced around the little tableau, a ghost or a shade that wound eagerly through the pain in the air. The young man squeezed the locket's sides, lifted it up a few inches, and swore when it dropped again through his fingers. He reached for the shabby bedside table, picking up her wand. The stubby implement stayed in his hand for long minutes as Dolores' screams faded with her strength. He set the wand down again, sighing and looking at his hands. He had gained more solidity, more form and definition. "Not yet," he mumbled. "Do you know who this locket once belonged to, hag?" he asked sweetly.

Umbridge's head wagged weakly from side to side, and the young man smiled broadly.

"You were right to call it a symbol of pure blood," he told her, leaning close to whisper in her ear. "It belonged to _Slytherin,_ you dumb old bitch. You claimed a lesser legacy to increase your status with the popinjays and worthless refuse who were too cowardly to support their true lord." His smile never faltered as he insulted her. "Can you scream, still?"

She drew a ragged breath, and he flicked his eyes towards the elder man. The elder stepped forward, drawing out his own wand and pointing it at Umbridge's prone form. A whispered curse had her writhing weakly in agony, and the young man gestured after a few moments. She stopped twisting and panted softly. "I see you can't scream anymore. I imagine you'll fall unconscious soon." He brushed aside an errant lock of her hair. "Did you ever wonder, at the beginning, if it was affecting you? Did you wonder why it worked as it did? Ah, well, you were either too arrogant or too stupid to believe that what you had discovered..." His face finally lost the indulgent, fond smile he had worn, betraying a bit of the anger he had shown to the other man in the room. "That you had discovered something you weren't even worthy to touch." He looked across the room, leaning back to watch the shade that leaped from shadow to shadow to foul bright patch. For long minutes he waited in silence, his smile slowly returning until he chuckled, or scowled, or muttered a few words, waiting out the death watch of a woman he hated. 

Minutes turned to an hour, and although both of the men in the room half-expected the doors to fly open and aurors to storm into the room with drawn wands, all that happened was that Dolores Umbridge fell almost peacefully unconscious. Finally, he opened his mouth, almost as though to yawn, and the shade flew into it. Twenty minutes later, Umbridge finally expired, and Lord Voldemort stood, brushing at his robes, reaching out to take his wand from Wormtail. "Pathetic old creature. But she served her purpose." He toed the foot of the bed, shrugged, and headed out into the world.

+----+

Harry Potter felt as though he might faint. His formal robes hung hot and close about him, and Sirius, at his side, was hovering so close that he wanted to scream. Finally, Harry sucked in a deep breath and snapped "Sirius, you have to stop."

Sirius snapped his mouth shut in sudden consternation. "I was only trying--"

"I know," Harry said. "But you're stifling me, and it's not helpful. I feel like I'm about to pass out, and you're about three inches away."

Sirius backed off a few steps and sat down heavily in a handy chair. The light, airy room _was_ unusually warm, so he aimed his wand at a window and let the cold December air blow in. A few snowflakes worked their way inside, fluttering to the floor not far from the window. "You're not allowed to tell anyone I gave you this," Sirius said after a few moments, holding a flask out to Harry. 

Harry took it with a little raising of his eyebrows, tossing back a shot's worth and handing it back. A harsh whiskey with tones of blueberries washed over his palette and he gasped, sucking wind for a few moments. The calming feeling from the shot was mostly placebo, he was sure, but it still felt a little better. Sirius paced to the door, glancing at the clock in the corner of the room. "Come on, or Narcissa will have a fit."

Harry hauled himself to his feet. Sirius jostled his shoulder as he drew level with him, then offered Harry his arm. Harry hooked arms with his godfather, letting Sirius lead him through the grounds of Malfoy Manor. Harry, as (technically) the guest, was staying in the guest house out in the back of the property. Snow gathered on either side of the path, so that Harry had to squish up close against Sirius' side to avoid his dress robe brushing through the snow and getting wet at the hem. Rosebushes, enchanted to grow and bloom even at the solstice, lined the path, their petals dusted with flakes. The smell of snow, and snowmelt, and a distant-but-delectable dinner drifted across the grounds. A pavilion, satiny silver fabric held up by a light network of wooden supports, outshone the snow at the end of the path. People sat beneath it, warm and comfortable under charms. The massive form of Hagrid was visible even from the door of the guest house. 

A light blinked atop the pavilion, and thready music began to issue from it. Sirius began a stately march forward, very nearly supporting Harry against fainting. Harry kept pace with Sirius as the music came clearer and clearer from the pavilion. He could pick out the red hair of a few Weasleys. Up at the front, one on each side of the stage, were Fred and George, and Dean and Seamus, and Daphne and Blaise, and Neville and Luna, and Professors Snape and MacGonagall, all decked out in different colors (except the twins, both in green, and Minerva and Severus, copying Neville's red and Luna's violet respectively) to form a rainbow. Behind them was an official-looking wizard whom Harry keenly remembered Draco referring to as "Lord Officious Snootersby" and who, therefore, always made Harry crack a smile when he saw him. Draco could just be seen approaching from the other side of the pavilion, a black speck beside the willowy, graceful form of Narcissa in her bold teal dress. Harry crossed into the warming charm under the pavilion, sighing as the winter air stopped trying to bite through his robes. Draco relaxed across the pavilion as well as Narcissa led him to the stage. She and Sirius nodded to each other, depositing their charges at center stage, in front of everyone's eyes. Harry took a deep breath, and Draco smiled at him. "You look amazing," Draco said quietly.

Harry looked down at the ground, and then beamed up at Draco. "So do you."

He meant it. Five years had only improved Draco in his opinion. Their original vow to do this as soon as it was legal anywhere had been thwarted when Dolores Umbridge made good on her threat to prevent the Ministry from recognizing marriages performed on foreign soil, but after a year of work, the new Minister--Harry darted a glance into the seated attendees, but couldn't see her--had finally manged to pass a law allowing "full marriage rights," simultaneously allowing the marriage that was about to be performed and recognizing Dean and Seamus' Amsterdam wedding. In that time, Draco had remained thin and sharp, but had gained muscle and a bit more jawbone. Harry, to Draco's endless amusement, had developed the slightest gathering of pudge around his gut. Harry smiled a little broader, thinking of Draco calling it his "curry storage pouch" just a few nights ago. 

The officiator spread his hands when Sirius and Narcissa took their seats. "Friends and family, we come together today to honor and recognize the bond between these men. Each has written a few quick words to say to the other." 

He gestured to Harry, and Harry stuck his hand into his pocket. Sirius had enchanted his notes to read themselves off in his head when he touched them, and he cleared his throat. The first words out of his mouth came in an undignified squeak. He took his finger from his notes and tried again.

"Draco, I've known I would spend the rest of my life with you for ten years, very nearly to the day. We had had our biggest, loudest fight, and I was exhausted, and when you saw me miserably getting ready to cry into my morning waffles, you came to me, and you ended the fight, because however mad you were at me, it wasn't as important to you as making sure that I was okay." Harry reached out and took Draco's hands. "For as long as I may live, I promise you that I will hold myself to that standard. Whatever may seem likely to come between us, I'll step past it for you, for your happiness and comfort. I've never seen a greater display of love in my life than that, and if I can show you even a third of that, I'll consider myself lucky to have loved so intensely."

Draco swallowed hard, tearing up, though Harry doubted anyone else could see it. He took a few deep breaths and finally spoke. 

"The perfect center of my circle,  
the flawless diamonds of my soul,  
the endless winter you turned vernal,  
all of this and more you stole.

"The beauty of a stolen moment,  
the trance that followed our first kiss,  
every word from every poet,  
all this perfect, endless bliss.

"Every word you've ever spoken,  
all your gentle, breezy sighs,  
without an effort, I'd be broken  
if I were ever set aside.

"All your touches cure my heartache,  
you are everything I need,  
a warming shelter till the daybreak,  
all this love, from you proceeds.

"You're all I ever needed, wanted, or pursued,  
and the truth is I love you."

Somewhere in the middle of Draco's poem, Harry teared up, and he almost leaned over and kissed Draco ahead of schedule, but then the officiator spoke up again. "Do you, Draco Lucius, take Harry James to be your husband?"

"I do," Draco said.

The man turned to Harry. "Do you, Harry James, take Draco Lucius to be your husband?"

Harry nodded briskly. "I do."

The man broke into a huge smile. "You may kiss," he said, which recommendation Harry and Draco gladly took. 

Draco chuckled. "You taste like that awful blueberry whiskey of Sirius'."

Harry grinned back at him, still leaning against his forehead. "You taste like vermouth."

Draco kissed him one more time. "I guess mum and Sirius both have the same way of dealing with tension."

"It must be tradition," Harry quipped, looking up towards the audience.

"I present to you all Harry and Draco Potter-Malfoy!" the officiator called out, and applause began to ring out around them. Even Severus began to clap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been nearly a year, but... this isn't dead yet.

The flames licked the surrounding homes behind him as he left. Lord Voldemort smirked and extended his wand, slipping through the ether with as little noise as he could manage, which, to his disappointment, was more noise than he had once made. Umbridge may have been pure-blooded, but clearly she was less powerful than he had been at his prime.

He arrived, and beside him, Wormtail popped into the street, wand gripped in his shining silver hand. Voldemort took in a deep breath. The street in front of Malfoy Manor smelled of roses and cuckooflowers, kept alive in the winter by profligate use of magic. The crisp snowy edge to the air was disappointing, as was the lack of honeysuckle. Lucius had used to keep honeysuckle just for his Dark Lord. Of course, Lucius was dead, and his son betrayed everything Voldemort and his people stood for. Draco Malfoy's death would be the flag he would raise to show his ascendancy. Harry Potter's would crown his victory.

He stepped up to the gates. Wrought iron parted like smoke around him. They could adjust the wards all they wanted, but they could never keep him out. Lucius had completely rebuilt the protections around Malfoy Manor long ago so that no spell to exclude Voldemort would take. Wormtail was another matter. Voldemort turned to his lackey.

"I trust not even you can fail at this task?"

Wormtail bowed low and disapparated with a pop. Voldemort began to stroll around to the back garden. The wedding of Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. It was revolting. Lucius must have gone mad, to save the boy. His son smeared pure shit across the Malfoy name each time he laid so much as a finger on Potter. Now he besmirched it by mixing the once-honorable name with the blood-traitor's. Voldemort tapped the top of his head with his wand. Time was he would have strolled in bold as brass, laying all about him indiscriminately, unafraid and untouchable. But with only the old bitch's power behind his moves, he must practice subterfuge. The disillusionment charm concealed him with something approaching perfection.

Voldemort looked around. They were dancing alone on the dance floor while music played. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Their guests watched them with rapt attention. The mudblood Minister, the werewolf, the Weasleys.

This shop-boy, this nobody and his catalog model lover. And somehow prophecy tied them together. Voldemort saw a dozen targets he wanted to eliminate. Snape, burned and hunched in a foul muggle contraption, almost smiling at Draco's impropriety. His wand--once Umbridge's, so he couldn't be caught up in the same effect that had ruined his first return--nearly creaked in his hand as he resisted the urge to strike down the Minister.

+----+

Seamus was in mid-lyric when Draco's hand slipped into his pocket. Harry frowned at him, opened his mouth to frame a question, but didn't even begin to voice his thoughts before Draco's arm was pointed somewhere across the pavilion, Elder Wand in hand, free hand pushing Harry around behind him. A flash of blue light burst from the Elder Wand, actinic and blinding. It picked out a vague shape behind the watchers, human-ish but distorted. From that shape came a jet of green light, flying wide of both of them. Draco stepped forward, throwing a second flash of blue towards the strange shape. All the guests were scattering, yelling. A few had spotted the light of the killing curse, but most seemed to be fleeing from what must appear to be Draco's sudden madness. After all, who was to say what that blue light truly did?

Harry pulled his own wand from his pocket, but Draco turned and snapped, "Run! This is why Dumbledore gave me the wand! Get to safety!"

Harry blanched. "Safe... Draco, I'm not leaving you here to fight alone!"

Draco turned a glare on Harry even as he began moving his wand in intricate patterns, trailing some strange fog that expanded between them and their attacker.

"Harry, run!" Draco insisted. 

Harry began another objection, but a hand on his shoulder whirled him around and he was dragged away by Sirius.

Another form emerged from the fog Draco was building up and he grimaced slightly as he saw the Minister of Magic.

"Madam Minister," Draco said tightly.

"Draco, I am here to help you fight what I can only assume is Voldemort," she growled. "You could at least do me the courtesy of calling me Hermione."

"Madam Minister is more respectful," Draco pointed out. He flicked his wand back and forth a few times. Portions of the fog glowed green in the shape of people, except for one red outline. Draco shot a stunner at the red outline, but it was already twisting to the side. "Damn," he mumbled.

Hermione Weasley rolled her eyes and started flinging spells at Voldemort. "Dare I ask how the Weasley twins' poster boy comes by this much dueling skill?"

"It's all part of a pureblood upbringing," Draco lied.

"Try that again and I'm going to have to extinguish your underthings," Hermione informed him irritably. "You know I can be trusted."

"You're a politician, and you were elected on the merit of your being honest. I trust you quite as much as Voldemort."

Hermione watched the fog. The red outline of Voldemort was now the only light showing in it. Whispers of his name, or the many things people used instead of it, bounced around the pavilion. The red light in the fog suddenly grew. Voldemort was coming closer, charging in, and then... the whole of Draco's fogbank turned red. 

"Well, shit," Draco said conversationally.

A distorted, blurry form burst from the glowing red fog, but Draco's arm had tracked to the left, and the tip of his wand jammed into Voldemort's gut as he leapt out. A stubby wand flew from his hand, and he backed away, throwing one hand up. He became fully visible, abandoning his concealment. His wand reversed course in midair and came back to his hand. 

"Madam Minister, run," Draco ordered. Voldemort launched a white light at him that he deflected with a wide sweep of his wand.

+----+

Sirius slammed Harry up against the wall of Grimmauld Place. He wrenched his wand out of his hand and hid it behind his back. "Harry, you have to trust in Draco."

"I trust Draco just fine!" Harry shot back. "I just happen to want to help him! He is my husband, Sirius!"

"And he has the Elder Wand!" Sirius dodged back away from Harry's second attempt to retrieve his wand. "You'll only get in the way. Draco has this, Harry!"

"You're asking me to sit here helpless while he faces Voldemort!"

"I'm asking you to wait while the one with the tools solves our problem!"

"He will not _solve_ this problem, Sirius! He will only delay it!"

Sirius' eyes widened a bit. "Are you volunteering to go and get killed, Harry?"

Harry looked down at the floor. "That's how this ends, Sirius. We all know it."

The door opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure anyone following this already guessed that Hermione was Minister of Magic. Despite the way I've treated her in this, I have a real soft spot for Hermione. I'm hoping to drop hints of what's happened in her political career across this final part of the series.
> 
> The Elder Wand is honestly doing most of the fighting here.
> 
> So, a note about Voldemort: His power has been significantly reduced because of the way he returned. He absorbed Umbridge's power instead of truly regaining his old power.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> coming back to this after another six months away from it. Maybe this time I'll be irritated enough at myself to polish it off.

Draco limped up to the door, but he paused with his hand on the wood. "That's how this ends, Sirius. We all know it."

Harry's voice was thick with resignation and despair, dark with bitterness. Even as Draco pushed open the door, his heart broke a little. Their wedding day ruined by Voldemort, their happiness tainted by a reminder of its end. Sirius was holding Harry's wand away from him in one outstretched hand while Harry quested ridiculously after it, both of them frozen in a fairly undignified tableau as their heads swiveled towards the opening door. "Just because that's how it ends doesn't mean that you get to rush into it," Draco scolded. "I have the Elder Wand to protect you, Harry."

Harry let out a gasp and rushed to Draco. "Your face!" he exclaimed. 

Draco flinched back from Harry's outstretched hand. "Harry, love, it's a fresh wound. Sirius, do you have any dittany?"

Sirius nodded and hurried off to grab the healing potion. "He lost," Draco explained, "but he's tangled with Dumbledore and the Elder Wand enough times to know how to escape. Can't imagine what he thinks of me now that he's fought me showing the same kind of skill." He shuddered while Harry pressed close to him. The other man was trembling, the adrenaline of the last few minutes no longer steadying him. Draco pressed a kiss to Harry's cheek. His own cheek was slashed open in a long gash that wandered up over his temple and across his brow. Blood welled and oozed over his face. "It's awful fighting with the Elder Wand. It calls up the spells, moves my hand. I didn't even know we were in danger until I was reacting to it."

Draco's eyes wandered to the shelf where Sirius kept the remains of the horcruxes they'd destroyed so far. The withered diary, a little pile of ash that had once been a ring with a stone set in it, a crumpled chunk of gold with less resemblance to the cup it had spent time as than to a gilded apple core. That last had been the profitable result of some solemn thought and an expedition into the Gringott's vaults of a half dozen Death Eater families with no less a personage than the Minister for Magic herself. That had been before Weasley began legislating to reduce the unilateral power that made her position a linchpin in wizarding society. She couldn't get away with the same thing anymore.

Gryffindors.

Sirius came back in and started daubing dittany generously onto Draco's face. It stung and itched in a way that spoke eloquently of the scar he would have soon. A series of rapid-fire cracks in the kitchen announced the arrival of Weasley and her preferred Order of the Phoenix entourage. Sure enough, Nymphadora Tonks, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Ron Weasley preceded the Minister into the front room, with Ginny Weasley taking up the rear. 

"Tell them, Kingsley," Weasley prompted.

Shacklebolt sighed. "Dolores Umbridge's home burned down this morning. The fire started at the same time as your wedding and spread around to neighboring muggle homes. There was a lot of strange magic in the area. I have the case files with me." He pulled a very muggle file folder from his robe and approached the table, giving Draco a dark look. "You're not to touch the original, as you're both covered in blood. No stains on my files."

+----+

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. Nagini had yet to eat him, presumably because of the power of the amulet he wore. The serpent inset into its face seemed almost to writhe as he spoke to the snake. "Not long, now. Your master will be here soon, and then you'll get all the food you could ever want."

The locket hissed softly as he spoke, but when the Dark Lord's snake hissed back at him, it made no more sense than if he'd tried to put meaning in the whistling of a teakettle.

A soft popping sound hailed the Dark Lord's return. Nagini turned her eyes away from Peter,and they both startled a bit as Voldemort came stumbling into the room. He was singed and smoking softly, his handsome young eyes wide and his lips curled into a snarl.

"Dumbledore!" he yelled. A series of low hisses passed between Dark Lord and snake, and then he said again "Dumbledore."

"Dead and gone, my lord," Peter said hopefully.

"A LIAR!" Voldemort screamed, and everything rattled in the little shack where his familiar had been kept these long years, preserved alive in a powerful potion. "His power, his achievements, his VICTORIES, all LIES AND TRICKS!"

"My lord?" Peter whispered.

Voldemort reached out and swept everything off of a little table before he sat heavily. "Sit on the floor, Wormtail."

Peter sat, instantly obeying.

"All Dumbledore's power can only have been a trick, because it has been thrown into my face again today. Lucius' little catamite son dared to defy me, and he fought like Dumbledore. the only consolation I can have is that the little filth is stupid in battle when I hold him up to Dumbledore. But he moved like Dumbledore. He chose his moves poorly, but they were enough. It was like fighting a wall, playing quidditch with imaginary balls. He could not defeat me; neither could I defeat him. Dumbledore taught him a trick, gave him an artifact, something... I will have the secret of him, and I will kill him and use that secret to kill EVERYTHING he has ever loved. Tomorrow, Wormtail... Tomorrow we visit Nurmengard. Grindelwald may know more of the secret than I."


	4. Chapter 4

Hermione Weasley stared between Harry and Draco, watching just a little suspiciously as they got blood all over Kingsley's copied file folder. Draco's head wound had bled like crazy, and smeared both of them while he was comforting Harry.

That there were things she hadn't been told was obvious. Harry and Draco liked to play their cards close to their chests, But Hermione had known Harry, at least, for half a decade of close friendship. Hell, they'd practically been lovers once, and Harry wasn't all that good at dissembling with perfect strangers. Even after ten years of being cordial with each other at the best, she knew that he was hiding something, and what he was hiding was big. Probably to do with that damned cup Sirius had killed.

They spoke in low tones, and Hermione remembered the skill as one she and Harry and Ron had picked up in their adventuring days at Hogwarts. But now, Harry and Draco had new partners, new people who they would talk with in low voices with heads bent together over strange texts and ominous finds.

She was Hermione Weasley, Minister for Magic, but sometimes, for minutes or hours at a time, she missed being Hermione Granger, bosom friend of the Boy Who Lived and companion through fear and fire and trolls and trials.

The front door opened again and Seamus Finnigan came through, still in dress robes, but covered in the class of thick grey dust that accumulates on old books. His husband followed him, bleeding freely from a gash on his left arm and levitating a stack of books bound in somewhat questionable leather. Something that looked horribly like a freckle adorned the spine of the thinnest book, and everyone backed of as they dropped the books on the table, Kingsley snatching away his precious files and huffing irritably as blood from the copy splashed the original.

The tomes landed with a heavy thud. Harry immediately dived into them, pulling open one.

"He looked young," Draco said, "which means it wasn't the potion, thank all the little gods for that. His eyes were red, I think. That would mean... It has to mean the locket or Ravenclaw's... whatever Ravenclaw had. The snake is too late, it would make him look like he did last time, and we'd know if it was... the other option."

A dark silence passed between them, and Harry swallowed hard. Dean and Seamus had both grabbed for a book, Sirius coming to apply dittany to Dean's arm as he read. Draco passed the thin book with the freckle to Hermione, taking a volume that had hair on it for himself.

"You're looking for the revival process," Harry said. "This is everything we haven't been able to read through yet. Either we just got it recently or it's charmed not to open except at greatest need."

Hermione opened the book. She could swear it felt clammy, or sweaty. Her fingers flew through the pages, glancing at headings that detailed horrible magic and frightening things, but nothing about revival.

Finally, Seamus let out a triumphant yell and slammed the book he was looking through down on the table. His finger rested on the part of the text he'd been reading.

_The spirit within the horcrux will most assuredly draw on its host in time, provided that they are foolish enough to rely on it. In this manner, the Least Resurrection can be made. Be warned, for the Least Resurrection is imperfect. Three things are needed for it to succeed: the host, the Need, and your own soul. Without the host or the Need, it cannot occur. Without your own soul, it will remake you as you were when the horcrux was made._   
_In the Least Resurrection, the horcrux will use its own spirit to create a shade, which will slowly grow in solidity and power. The shade will be you as you were at the time it was made, with the full measure of your body (including your raiment at the time), the full measure of your wit and memory, all your good and evil impulse, and all your hopes and ambitions. This being the whole measure of your self at the time, the horcrux will be emptied._   
_As the shade is but your own shade, you must be present to enter it, or your true soul will be destroyed. As the Least Resurrection is accomplished without the magic of the Potion of Herpo, your magical power will be that of the host, drained to embody you and reduced permanently even then to summon flesh into the shade. By this way, you may take again and again the body you gloried in as a youth, but each time you will become weaker in magic until you are reduced to magicless shame._   
_If you have done this, you may discard your horcrux. It will never more serve to hold any part of your soul._

"He's down to three," Harry whispered. "The snake, something of Ravenclaw's or the locket, and... and me."

Hermione took a deep breath and frowned at Harry.

"Would you mind telling me what a horcrux is?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this has bothered me for a while: shouldn't Diary Riddle have been naked? He's sort of ambiguously established as not, but why did the diary revive him with clothes on? Did he put his clothes souls in a horcrux, too?


	5. Chapter 5

Gellert looked up at the quiet sound of someone climbing in his window. A soft scuttling heralded the passage of a rat across the stone floor. Splintered wood littered the flagstones, and a single chair rested unharmed and pristine across the expansive room.

Albus' chair.

Three books lay in a neat pile beside Albus' chair. 

Gifts from Albus.

Albus was the only one who spoke to him, but Albus was gone (wasn't he?) and wouldn't have come in the window, anyway.

Several soft plops come from where the animagus had gone (there were no rats in Nurmengard), and some quiet whispering in English, a sussurant hiss underlying the words and leaving them indistinct at this distance. A muttered killing curse, a whistled all-clear, and a man stepped into the room where Gellert huddled. He was perhaps twenty, his eyes glowing red out of a handsome face. Albus would have been attracted, apparently.

The handsome face was a little too drawn to be right, a bit paler than was strictly human, the skin vaguely translucent if he looked. 

Albus would have been attracted anyway. If he could love Gellert, terrifying freak that he was, he could love this monster.

The handsome face sneered. "This held Europe in its fist?"

"Quiet, boy, or I'll kill you," Gellert threatened listlessly. He knew he wasn't impressive. His guest wore fine robes, a tall, pointed hat with a swept green brim. Gellert wore a threadbare Nazi uniform's threabare undershirt. It had been in the closet, had been there for sixty years. He had shredded the pants for it with his fifty-second outburst of uncontrolled magic. He hadn't bothered to wear anything else. He was gaunt and filthy, not having gone to bathe in three days, not having eaten in two.

Perhaps his visitor would kill him for his insolence. Monsters sometimes did.

The handsome face snorted in contempt. "Death doesn't come for you until you answer me." He was British. From somewhere in London, if Gellert didn't miss his guess.

"Well, you'll get no answers until I've my dignity," Gellert replied. "There is a pair of trousers around here. Help me find clothes."

"Wormtail," the Handsome Face barked.

The animagus emerged, a cringing, whinging little man of forty, or perhaps sixty. It was hard to tell, as wrung out as he was. His bald pate was graceless, his face pinched and ratty, as though he spent too long as vermin. Beady eyes peered at Gellert, and then at the Handsome Face. A flash of silver. One of his hands was false. Gellert's own spell to replace a lost hand with a servant of its caster. "Yes, master?" Wormtail nearly scraped the floor with his nose as he bowed. The sweep of his ragged fringe of hair disturbed some of the splintered wood.

"Find this naked old wastrel clothes. I don't want to consult with him while he waves his cock in my face any more than he does."

The Handsome Face never took his eyes off of Gellert. It was too bad, really. Gellert would have loved to have killed him. A surge of wild magic, a sudden physical rush, and he might see the Handsome Face go slack, the red light die from his eyes.

"You're his monster," Gellert said. It wasn't a question.

"Whose?" the Handsome Face asked.

"Albus," Gellert answered evenly, watching for the reaction.

The Handsome Face twitched. His arm tensed, his posture straightened, for a moment, he was about to turn and curse Gellert, but he reined himself in. Wormtail returned with clothes. Shamelessly, Gellert stood. If the Handsome Face wasn't prepared to face the fact that he would be old and wrinkled one day, so be it. Gellert's balls were hardly the most offensive part of him. He pulled on a tattered pair of slacks that had once belonged to a Scottish muggle, a man who had gone through Nurmengard years ago, carrying a rifle and ignorant that this was the true center of the power he'd fought. Gellert threaded a belt through the loops at his waist and drew it tighter than there were holes. He shrugged and tied it off. Wormtail had brought shoes, as well, a right shoe in a muggle style popular the previous decade, a left boot that had come with the shirt. Gellert crammed feet unused to the confinement into them. It hurt. He concentrated, and cast a wandless, wordless cleaning charm. An alarm would be going off somewhere deep in the fortress.

"I trust you killed _all_ the guards?"

"Naturally," the Handsome Face said.

Gellert nodded. "I'd hate to see this all go wrong so quickly," he said. He focused a little and raised his hands, mumbling incantations. 

Most of what had been on the walls sixty years before was too far gone to fix. He had raged in this room, and shrieked, and wept, and had stopped himself from going mad only by base willpower. If he had let it happen, he might have grown into a wasted shadow like the Barebone child, all those years ago in New York. Raging around the tower as an obscurial, mindless rage and impotent hatred because they wouldn't let him use magic.

Of course, in truth, he was mad. He was very much a madman. He knew it very well, of course, but still...

What he could fix, he did. The worn and moldy fragments of three banners came together and hung on the walls, their devices faded and peppered with holes. The few tatters of the rug arranged themselves in place, the splinters in the room all gathered to make themselves into a sad echo of his old throne.

A throne. Where had he gone wrong? The Greater Good wasn't a simple excuse. Ruling was the goal, but if he didn't rule for the Greater Good, what point did it have? he would be remembered as a hateful figure of death and tyrrany.

Of course, so he was. And he would never rule.

Gellert sat in his throne and looked down at himself. 

Worn and holey shirt, once worn by a muggle. 

Cast-off trousers sixty years out of date, also a muggle's.

Sixty-year-old jackboot, ten-year-old sports shoe.

Filthy hair, unkempt beard.

"I almost ruled the world," he lamented. "They moved my things in here. Did you know? The whole top floor, and I sit and waste in a little bed. I would have lived here myself, sometimes. Had a throne. The symbol of the hallows on the wall, and here I am, just an old man. It's pointless to try, boy."

The Handsome Face rolled his eyes and sat in Albus' chair. "How did Dumbledore beat you?"

Gellert threw his head back and croaked out an unfamiliar noise. His own laughter startled him, and tears rolled down his face, he shook and heaved and coughed, pain welling up in his throat while all the laughter of six decades poured out of him like a waterfall.

There wasn't much of it, for all that.

"Beat me? No, he never beat me. I gave up." 

The Handsome Face stared. 

Gellert sighed and continued. "I never wanted to kill him. I think that's why I always failed. He wasn't a victim. Everyone I wanted to kill... if I wanted to kill someone, I killed them. But I didn't want to kill Albus. He came to me, and he knew he wouldn't win, but he fought, and I tried... but I don't think I tried. Not really. If I had, he'd have died. And when he reached me, he was crying, and I was laughing, because it was funny, you see, it was funny, how he couldn't win, but even though he couldn't win... he was the one person I never wanted to kill. He couldn't win, and I... wouldn't. I handed him my wand and told him to make it quick. I didn't feel bad for trying to kill him. I understand that much, I didn't feel bad, because of what I am, I felt nothing, but I didn't want to kill him.

"Don't mistake my meaning. I didn't want not to kill him, but I didn't want to kill him, either. I wouldn't have minded if he died. If I had killed him, I wouldn't have been disappointed. But it was enjoyable to kill people I wanted dead. I liked it. I wouldn't have smiled when he died. That's all. And that's all it took. You see, unless I want to do things, I won't do them."

Gellert stared at the ceiling. "Ask what you came here to ask, boy."

"How can I beat him?"

"You already did. He's dead."

"He taught his trick to a pervert in league with my enemy."

"No, no, no, you idiot," Gellert snapped. "Never _demean_ your enemy!" His eyes flashed to the Handsome Face, and he growled, suddenly the Fuhrer on his throne. "I brought Europe _to her KNEES,_ boy! I was the power! I lent Hitler his power, I toppled France, and I never disrespected my enemy! You dismiss your enemy's guardian as a pervert? You have ALREADY LOST!"

The Handsome Face recoiled before the thunder of Gellert's voice.

Gellert leaned back. "I was unbeatable, but I handed that to Albus when I wouldn't kill him. The wand. It was all the wand."

The Handsome Face stared, uncomprehending. Gellert sighed. "Three brothers came to a river, a long time ago. Shut up and listen. This is the explanation you seek. Three brother came to a river and couldn't cross it without dying, but they were wizards, and they cheated Death with magic. But the brothers were a choice prize and Death waylaid them, and offered them each a boon. 

"One was a coward and asked to hide from Death. He was given a cloak of invisibility that hid him even from Death, and greeted his mortality meekly in the end, passing on the cloak to his sons.

"One was a fool and asked to humiliate Death. Death gave him a stone that would call spirits from the afterlife. It drove him mad and he embraced Death to be with them.

"One was bold and asked to inflict Death on others. Death made him a wand of Elder, and he could not be defeated in a duel. He was killed in his sleep, as the bold sometimes are."

Gellert stared at the wall for a moment. "The Deathly Hallows. Whoever gathers all three is supposed to become Master of Death. It's horseshit, but they do exist. Albus managed it for a brief time. He held the cloak and the wand, and he held the stone. Not all at once, I think. But what he has given your enemy is the wand. You should have another plan. Do not attack directly again."

The Handsome Face nodded. "I'll leave you alive."

"You are as cruel as he said," Gellert replied. "They will kill me painfully when they see what you've done."

"Good," the Handsome Face said simply, and he collected his servant and left through the front door, passing through the bars on Gellert's prison like they were smoke.

Gellert didn't bother to call after him, to tell him he had held one of the Hallows. Any fool who couldn't see a hallow for itself, ho would profane it to make it something as base as a horcrux... he deserved what he got.

Gellert watched Albus' chair until the next rotation of guards came. He didn't speak at all. He welcomed it when they killed him in fear and anger. Being beaten to death, it turned out, was strangely familiar. As the darkness came for him, he decided it was because he had been beating himself to death for sixty years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter... um... I'm okay, guys. This story just had a dark place to go to.


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